


nothing burns deeper (than the fires of regret)

by writergirl8



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Jewish!Lydia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-05 07:24:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5366369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writergirl8/pseuds/writergirl8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles has a lifetime of Hanukkahs with Lydia Martin, and they all have one thing in common. </p><p>Whether he and Lydia are estranged, dating, or married, he is in love with her through every single one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Night 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> Happy holidays, everybody! I love talking about the possibility of Jewish Lydia, so here are eight Hanukkahs with the two of them. Most of them are intensely fluffy, so don't be fooled by the first few chapters. The title comes from [this hanukkah song](https://soundcloud.com/dan-nichols-and-eighteen/to-be-a-light)
> 
> If you want to chat, I'm [rongasm](rongasm.tumblr.com) on tumblr. I will be posting one chapter a night, so come back tomorrow for more Stiles and Lydia being idiots about each other. 
> 
> And this is Polina's Christmas present, so I love you Po, and I hope you have wonderful holidays.

Lydia's dog won't stop baring his teeth at Stiles, and he's sort of starting to wonder if the little shit knows that Stiles tried to get Lydia to get rid of him. Ever since Lydia had plopped onto her bed and Stiles had leaned his back against the foot of it, Prada has been standing guard over the two of them, going back and forth between casual snarling and haughty disdain.

Stiles sort of gets it. Whenever he's in this room, he feels like he's replacing Prada as the dog at the foot of the bed, full of energy and playfulness and, quite honestly, really hoping that Lydia will pet him. Which is  _exactly_ why he doesn't lie on Lydia's bed with her when they're studying together.

Except it's a little bit annoying, because with the vantage point she's at, she can always see what he's doing, and this usually leads to a well-placed quip about his ridiculous handwriting, or a comment on how his phrasing is practically  _handing_ her valedictorian. Not that Stiles wants to be valedictorian. He and Scott are planning on going buck-fucking-naked under those robes, and giving a speech while  _naked_  is on his top ten list of things he would never want to do, right above getting eaten by a werewolf but below watching his father dramatically perform the Shania Twain song that his mom used to always have stuck in her head.

They're trying to be normal. That's why they're sitting here. They want to feel  _normal_ again, and when they sit in Lydia's bedroom with music thrumming softly from her expensive speaker, they can almost forget the fact that her best friend died a month ago.

"You're one number off," Lydia comments breezily, tapping her pencil against the third equation on Stiles' paper. "Getting lazier by the minute, Stilinski."

Everything she says feels fake and wrong, like her voice has carved itself a mask against what she's really feeling.

(Stiles plays along. Stiles is almost as ripped up as she is.)

"No I'm fucking not wro-" He frowns, tapping his pen against the notebook paper he'd stolen from Lydia, and re-counts the numbers. Oh. Yeah. One number off. "Fine."

"Mhm," she drawls as he scribbles furiously on the page. "Remind me- what's that saying I made up? About me always being right?"

"'Lydia is always right.'"

"Well. You said it. Not me."

He wants to laugh, but when he looks over his shoulder his eye catches the empty bedside table where Lydia has turned over the framed picture of her and Allison smiling before the winter formal. Something jolts in his stomach when he thinks of Lydia in her white dress, lying on the lacrosse field, and how she looks different now. Not like she's a different person. But now he looks at Lydia and sees exactly who he was offering to die for on the field that night.

Stiles would never regret it. Not then, when Lydia had rushed off into Jackson's arms. Not now, when she glances up from the book she's annotating for their English class and offers Stiles a small smile that doesn't reach her eyes.

Over the past year of playing "friends" with Lydia Martin, Stiles has become a hybrid of a broken clock and a ticking time bomb. Looking up at her, he wonders if he's going to shatter, or if he's going to fucking explode.

He can't focus when her breath is near his ear and her hair is tickling his shoulder, and she is much too close for him to actually be able to get anything done, but he still likes to study with her. He still likes being on the floor of her bedroom, knowing that she is okay. Nothing else in the entire world is okay, but Lydia is safe, and that's what matters. He can see her, and she is tangible, and her eyelashes flutter against her cheek as she stares down at the page in front of her.

"How do you feel safe with me here?"

So what if he's breaking their cardinal rule of not talking about it? She is trying to tease him about his math work instead of abusing him the way he abuses himself, and Stiles wants to know why. He would hand her the whip if she asked him for it. Maybe he had handed it to her the minute Allison had died.

"It wasn't you."

She doesn't seem surprised, which just goes to show the miracle that is Lydia Martin.

"He trapped you in that tunnel and he… he had my voice. My face."

"It wasn't you."

"Everything was me."

"It wasn't  _you_ , Stiles."

"I'm the reason Allis-"

"I  _know_ ," she says. For the first time, her voice is sharp. When she speaks again, it is low and controlled. "Stiles, what are you doing?"

He turns around fully, on his knees in front of her as Lydia lies on her stomach in her dark dress, her brows furrowing together when he licks his lips in an effort to counteract the dryness of what he is about to say.

"Trying to get you to see it."

Lydia closes her eyes.

"Why do you think it's so clear-cut?"

"I killed her."

"Maybe," she says, voice broken. "Maybe I did."

Stiles freezes.

"But-"

"I don't want to be alone," Lydia whispers, opening her eyes to his. She stares at him imploringly, tilting her head the side. "Don't make me be alone."

He hears what she doesn't say, and it ricochets around the room:  _I'm scared to be alone. I'm scared. I'm alone anyways._

"When you look at me-"

"I see Stiles."

Her eyes drift down to his lips, and he remembers the press of Malia's against them.

"Don't," he says, warning in his voice because he is too broken to be put back together with her glue. It's too strong for him. It would fix him too well, until he collapses all over again, and  _he_ should be the one cradling her. Lydia doesn't have to clean up anybody's mess.

She's too good for it. Too good for him, and Stiles Stilinski is nothing but a void.

There's a knock at the door to Lydia's bedroom, and her mother jerks it open a second later, her eyes exhausted.

"Lydia," she says, "it's sundown."

"Right." Lydia closes her book, marking the page carefully, and sits up in bed. She starts to stretch, then notices Stiles looking at her, and stops, her body freezing. Instantly, she tenses, curling in instead of out.

His stomach revolts against what he already knows: she is afraid of him. She is, and she blames him, and this is what their future looks like.

"I'll go, then."

"Don't," she says, shaking her head. "We'll just light the candles and then come back upstairs."

"The candles?"

"It's the first night of Hanukkah," Lydia reminds him, getting off of her bed and heading for the door. "Come on."

Lydia's menorah is large and silver, perched at the edge of her dining room table. Her mother is already placing a candle on the right of the menorah, and when Lydia walks in, she hands another candle to her.

"Take the shamash," she says quietly. The only light in the room comes from the hallway behind Stiles, and he can see the weary sadness in Mrs. Martin's eyes as Lydia's fingers curl tight around the candle. "You can come in, Stiles."

"Ah, no, that's okay, I-" He catches the way Lydia looks down when he says it, and he changes his position at once. "Yeah. Sure."

Stiles walks around the other side of the table, hands shoved into his pockets as he tries to give them space. Lydia's mother lights her candle, and the two of them begin chanting words that Stiles can just barely recall from the frenzy of research he'd done when Lydia had invited the entirety of their grade to her bat mitzvah.

Lydia's face is illuminated only by the shamash and the one candle being lit, and for the first time, he really sees her lines. Her edges. She looks like a ghost, and it harrows him, knowing that he did this to her. Her mother gently pushes her hair over one shoulder and kisses her on the cheek as she presses a gift into Lydia's hands, and Lydia closes her eyes, leaning into her mother's touch as she whispers "amein" into the darkened room.

She hesitates only for a moment before she nods briefly at her mother, sets the gift on the table, and leaves the room. Stiles mutters a quick thanks to Mrs. Martin before he follows her, stopping her as she steps onto the staircase.

"Hey. I, um, actually think I'm gonna have to get going."

Lydia turns around in her bare feet and bare face, not letting herself betray anything.

"Why."

He smiles, pained.

"Did you know I went to your bat mitzvah? Made Scott come with me too."

Lydia leans against the railing.

"Did you have fun?"

A month ago, he had thought he was going to die without having any more moments with Lydia Martin. Now, he has an opportunity to have as many as he wants. Which is why he has to do what she asked him not to do.

He has to leave her alone.

"I'll talk to you soon," Stiles replies. He waves stiffly, awkwardly, before he grabs his coat and walks himself to the front door.

When he gets into his jeep, he calls Malia and thinks about the way Lydia's gaze had flickered to him in the candlelit room.


	2. Night 2

The Martin house had always seems so formidable to Stiles. When Mrs. McCall would drive him and Scott home from soccer practice, he used to see it peeking through the trees and think about how enormous it was. He remembers becoming friends with Lydia and thinking that the mahogany staircase and granite counters were so stupidly Lydia Martin that sometimes it pissed him off, the way she fit so effortlessly into this world. Because this house isn't his house. His is smaller and simpler and more lived-in. There's something almost sterile about the Martin house, the castle that it is, and Lydia is in her prime when she's in her home.

Or, at least, she used to be.

Lately, when Stiles drives his jeep up the long driveway, he finds that most of the windows are darkened. Lydia's bedroom is illuminated by lamps, and sometimes her mom will be in the kitchen or the living room. But other than that, it is eerily quiet. The type of fortress that is suited to a banshee, she had joked at one point. But that had been when both of them felt like they could joke around each other. That had been different.

Stiles still has adrenaline pumping through his veins from Scott's words, and he doesn't know how to contain himself. For the first time in months, he is driving with the type of antsy energy that feels good. He can't stop moving his feet, or licking at his lower lip, trying to shake enthusiasm away from his body only to feel it smack back into him as he replays Scott's words over and over again.

" _Lydia is in love with you_."

Stiles still doesn't really believe it. Every piece of his logic is screaming at him that it's crazy. But then there's the other part of him- still logical, but blessedly interested in thoroughly developing all scenarios. And how many things would make  _sense_ if Lydia had been in love with him all this time? Stiles wants her to make sense so much. He wants her to make sense with him, or for her to see that they make sense together.

The messily wrapped present is still sitting on Stiles' passenger seat, covered in too much tape and uneven wrapping paper, and he doesn't know why he'd bought it because as of fifteen minutes ago, he definitely had not thought that Lydia could be in love with him and therefore it's totally inappropriate for him to be getting her a Christmas present. He only gets three people presents every year, and Lydia is not one of the three.

But she could be. If she wanted to be. Maybe even if she didn't. If she just wanted to give him Christmas presents as his friends, he'd totally be okay with that too. Except it hurts. Except she's literally all he's ever wanted, and he doesn't care what form he gets her in as long as he gets her.

Stiles throws the jeep into park and tries not to think that it would be easier to get to her if the Martins had left the goddamn porch light on. He grabs the gift before he gets out of the car, then slams the door shut and makes the short trek up to Lydia's front porch, towards the dismally darkened house.

" _Stiles. Lydia is in love with you_."

That's what makes him ring the doorbell, and he's still holding his breath when Mrs. Martin appears in the doorway, frowning in confusion at the sight of him standing in front of her house.

"Hi," he says. "I, um, have an early Christmas gift for Lydia, and I was wondering-?"

"Lydia," she calls out softly. "Stiles is here to see you."

She emerges from the dining room, looking small in a large MIT hoodie and a pair of leggings. Her hair is braided back, her face unmade up, and Stiles swallows back his anger at the sight of the broken girl that she has become. He's never going to stop blaming himself for what had happened this year. He's never going to forget how it had felt to know that Lydia was completely out of his reach. No matter how hard he ran, he wasn't going to get to her.

He's fucking pissed that she hadn't been able to quickly, effortlessly go back to normal, because maybe then he would be able to hide behind the same facade she was using. But Lydia doesn't pretend anymore. Stiles doesn't blame her. They had left her alone so much that she didn't really have anyone to pretend to at all. Maybe she's forgotten how, without anyone around her.

It was a mistake that Stiles isn't going to be making again.

"Hey," he says as she replaces her mother in the doorway. "I, uh, got you a Christmas present."

"It's not Christmas yet."

"Right," he says, eyes flicking down to the gift. "Right, well, I know that. I just wanted to-"

"Check up on me."

"See you," he corrects, looking up her. "I wanted to see you."

It's exhilaratingly terrifying to see the way she glances away from him.

"It's Hanukkah," she says, stepping back and allowing him into the house. "You could have said it was a Hanukkah present."

"Yeah, that would have been smarter."

"Exactly," says Lydia, shutting the door and walking backwards to lean against the wall and cross her arms protectively over her chest. "Because  _I_  came up with it." He frowns, almost pouting at her as Lydia's lips quirk up in a slight smile. "You're on a six month plan embargo because of the Eichen plan, remember?"

"How about a lifetime plan embargo?" Stiles suggests, fidgeting too obviously. A chord of her sardonic laugh strikes him, and he remembers what Scott had said and looks up, trying to see if there's anything in her eyes that could indicate that Scott could be right.

"So are you going to hand me the present, or are we just going to stand here in the dark?"

He throws her the gift, ending the toss in a mock bow which Lydia must know is only eight-six percent sarcastic.

"Don't open it until I'm gone," he says after she catches it. Normally, he's obsessed with the kind of attention that comes with giving someone a present, but this is Lydia.

There's nothing Stiles could give her that remotely measures up to what she's already had.

"Okay," Lydia agrees, quiet. They stand in the hallway and Stiles lets his eyes flit into the dining room, where two candles are glowing in the menorah on the table.

"Um, happy Hanukkah," he says. "Hope you, uh, get everything you want. And stuff. Yeah."

"Right," Lydia says blandly. "Right. That's the idea, isn't it?"

"Holidays are never as good as the ideas behind them," Stiles shrugs.

"My dad used to light the candles with us," Lydia says, frowning at the menorah. "He doesn't come anymore because I threatened to light him on fire when I was fourteen."

Stiles grins.

"Damn."

"I know," she says. "Violence is not the answer."

"I'm just thinking that you probably should've checked to make sure he isn't a hellhound before you threatened to make him go up in flames."

_Shit. Hellhound. Awkward subject. Get out. Out. Abort._

"You're right. It's much less effective if he can't be burned."

"Waste of a good Hanukkah candle."

"They can get pretty expensive."

He remembers running through Eichen with her, feeling her fingers clutching at him to stay upright. He remembers days of sitting next to her while she recovered from what they'd done to her. He remembers the first day after Eichen that he didn't see her at all, and the feeling of anxiety that had squeezed at him until he drove to her house under the pretense of having to give her some homework.

Stiles has been so messed up for so long that he doesn't know if Lydia is the cause or the effect.

"Well, I'm glad you're okay," he says, ducking his head into a nod that is too exaggerated. "And, yep, I guess I'll just be going."

There was no way he was going to ask her. He doesn't know why he had pretended to himself that he was going to do it, because there's no fucking way.

"So you were checking up on me."

Stiles, hand on the doorknob, glances back at her.

"So what if I was?"

"So you shouldn't worry about me."

He turns around, tilting his head to the side.

"You're right. That never occurred to me. 'Don't worry about Lydia.' Great call. I'll jump right on that."

"Stiles."

"Do you think I  _want-_  all this time did you think-? I… shit, Lydia, I don't want to spend all day, every day telling myself that you're okay just so I can breathe. I don't fucking want that."

There's a light dancing in her eyes that wasn't there before. He wants her to burn him because he thinks anything would feel better than being stuck in an in-between with Lydia. But she's fiddling with the gift he gave her, her fingers running over the sloppily crafted packaging, and there's something about her expression right now that makes Stiles take a step closer, just to see.

"You don't want what, exactly?"

He runs a hand through his hair, exasperated.

"Scott said… Lydia, Scott told me… and I wanted to know if it was… but it's not… I mean, I know it's not. Right?"

She sets the present on the dresser behind her and takes a step closer to him, curiosity in her eyes.

"Why haven't you figured it out yet, Stiles?"

The way she says it makes his insides collapse even as his heart begins smacking itself against his chest.

"Lydia-?"

"Figure. It. Out."

It only takes three strides to be invading her personal space, watching her crane her neck up at him, searching his face with eyes that suddenly seem completely unamused. He dips his neck, and Lydia doesn't jerk back. She's waiting patiently for him. Stiles' hand brushes hers, and when Lydia swallows hard, he lets his fingers skate over to her waist, pulling her a bit closer.

"Lydia," he murmurs, "you gotta tell me if this isn't what you meant."

She covers his hand with hers and backs slowly to the wall, her eyes on his still, and Stiles follows dutifully. When Lydia hits the wall, the sound it makes sets him into motion, and he breathes in harshly, letting his head tilt until his nose is drifting across her cheek, and he never, until this moment, realized how much shorter than him she is.

Lydia closes her eyes and tilts her chin, and Stiles brings his hand from her waist to her cheek, running his thumb lightly across her lower lip as she waits for him. And it's enough proof for him to bend the rest of the way down and latch onto her lower lip, kissing it before tugging it slowly into his mouth.

He feels Lydia's hands sliding up his chest to his neck, where she presses her thumbs against his pulsepoint, and the sensitivity of it jolts him. Stiles runs his tongue all the way across Lydia's bottom lip, slowly and languidly, until he feels her thumbs press harder against his skin.

Okay.

He drags his palms away from her cheeks, wraps his arms around her waist, and  _kisses_ her, movements suddenly frenzied and uncontrolled. Lydia brings her hands around the front to grip his shirt as she kisses him back, making small noises into his mouth as he tries not to let himself be destroyed by her hands guiding his around her body, leaving them too low on her back.

"There you go," Lydia says, breathless as he finally pulls away and presses his forehead to hers. "You got it now?"

"God, I think I do," he says, voice crackly. "Jesus, Lydia."

She smiles, and she still looks at him like she's curious. That's what makes him kiss her again.


	3. Night 3

"How many comics did Kira give you, exactly?" Stiles asks, thumbing through the stack that is sitting on Scott's desk. "Is she just expecting you to forget about the existence of the human race so you can catch up on the entirety of Superman's tragic backstory?"

"You're just bitter because she ranked Spiderman below Captain America."

"Uh, yeah," Stiles agrees. "That's because Spiderman is  _awesome_."

"I told her I would read them over break," Scott says, shrugging as he flips a page. "Now you can either let me keep reading out loud to you, or you can just go."

Stiles stops pacing and turns around to grimace at Scott, who is sitting cross legged on his bed and shooting Stiles a grin, like he's pleased with himself for the retort.

"Ugh," Stiles says. "I'm not going to see you the entire break, am I?"

"No," Scott admits. "But you weren't going to anyways."

"What?"

"Oh, come on. I go to school two hours away from you. Lydia goes to school in Massachusetts. Were you honestly planning on spending any time with me over break?"

Stiles frowns.

"I wasn't even planning on spending much time with my pants over break."

"See. There you go. I prefer our time together to be pants-mandatory."

"Lydia doesn't care if I wear pants."

"We've been over this. It's because she likes what's in them, not because pants are 'arbitrary' and 'constricting' and 'inhumane.'"

"They're so  _tight_."

"You wear the loosest jeans of anyone I've ever met."

"I need freedom," Stiles snaps. "Freedom, Scott. Okay?"

Scott holds up his comic.

"That's what Steve Rogers is here for."

"You're reading  _Superman_ , Scott. That's Clark Kent."

There's a retort on the tip of Scott's tongue, but then he cocks his head and frowns, eyes flitting over to the window.

"You should go," he says, a slow grin stretching across his face.

"What? Why?"

"Because I have to read," Scott says firmly. "I'll text you later, okay?"

"Wait, what? Are you actually kicking me out of my own house?"

"This is my house."

"I stand by what I said."

"Just go," Scott says, throwing a pillow at him. Stiles ducks just in time.

"See, this is why we can't have sleepovers anymore," he says, ducking out of the doorway before Scott can throw anything more solid at his head. He digs through his pocket for his phone as he walks down the staircase, pulling up his text messages to see if anyone has messaged him since the last time he checked. He's still scrolling through a long-winded question from Liam about homework when he opens the front door and hops off all three steps to get off of the porch.

"Careful, there," says Lydia's voice, and when Stiles looks up, she's leaning against the hood of his jeep, arms crossed, illuminated by the light of the setting sun as as she slowly rakes her eyes up and down his body. "It takes a bit more height to really start to fly."

Stiles doesn't know whether he would rather make a comment about fairy dust or wanting to see Lydia in the long white night dress that Wendy Darling wears. He decides to forgo both comments and walks up to her instead, kissing her hello as his heart thumps erratically in his chest. Lydia's hands find their way under his shirt and she runs her nails lightly up and down his back, gasping into his mouth as his hands make their way to her ass.

"I thought you were coming home tomorrow," Stiles says as Lydia moves away from his lips and kisses his cheeks and nose, a smile on her mouth.

"I got impatient," she replies. "Either that, or you remembered the date wrong."

"When did you get back?"

"About twenty minutes ago."

He pulls away, disgruntled.

"It took you this long to get to me?"

"I was testing my will-power," Lydia says, nodding seriously.

"Sort of thought you had more willpower in you than twenty minutes."

"Considering the fact that Skype sex for four and a half months is the most frustrating experience I have ever had in my life, I think I did reasonably well."

"You can just say you missed me. I promise I won't tell anyone."

"Don't hold your breath."

His grin grows wider, and Lydia tries to hold back her smile as she realizes what she'd said.

"I guess I can say it for the both of us."

"You definitely do not speak for-"

"I missed you too, Lyds," he says, pressing his lips to her forehead and holding them there for a moment. "Like, a lot."

In a moment, she is back at his lips, hands dipping into the back of his jeans as he slides one hand up to cup her breast.

"Okay," he says breathlessly. "As much as I want to, we definitely cannot do this in Scott's driveway when the woman who basically raised me is about to come home from work."

Lydia pouts slightly, fixing the collar of his flannel.

"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."

"I don't like what you're implying."

"And what am I implying?"

"That I did work this semester. I mean, clearly I didn't."

"I apologize for my insensitivity," she says. "Now are you going to fuck me or am I going to fuck myself while you sit outside and listen? I'm good with either. Although there will be consequences if it's the second one, so the first one is preferable."

Stiles glances towards the sky, praying for strength to anyone who will listen.

"Wait, isn't tonight Hanukkah?"

"Why would you know that?"

"Uh, because I clearly keep up with things that are important to you. God, Lydia."

"Scott reminded you?"

"Yeah, he's really thoughtful about that shit."

"He actually sent me a happy Hanukkah text after the first night. I should go up there and thank him for that, just give me a-"

He grabs her hand and tugs her back to him, spinning her into him and kissing her.

"No. I haven't seen you in four months. You're mine."

"Well, I was already-" she starts impatiently, then pauses. "Oh god. Are you going to gloat about that now?"

"For the rest of break," he says curtly. "Get in the jeep."

He presses a kiss to her wrist before allowing her to walk around the car and into the seat next to his, the seat belt pulling tightly across her body. Stiles likes it when it's just the three of them- him, the jeep, and Lydia. He likes how small she looks in the seat, and how she usually kicks her shoes off because she feels comfortable enough in his car to do that. And he likes that she lets him take her hand when his isn't on the stick shift, because today the idea of not touching her is too much.

There's a part of him that still can't quite believe she's in California, and considering how long he has been missing her, Stiles is pretty proud of himself for holding back so much. He'll show her later, more than once, because saying things without words has always made Lydia so much more comfortable, and Stiles has gotten good at it. He bites his love for her into her inner thighs and she scratches it against his back and they say it over and over until it is burned into both of them; tattooed somewhere hidden and theirs.

"Where are we going?" Lydia asks as he pulls out of Scott's driveway, and Stiles turns on his police scanner, listening for the codes. He grins when he hears the one for a robbery.

"Dad'll be out of the house for a few hours," he says, and he sees her body relax as her eyes drift over to his, letting them shift up and down his torso again. "Thank god for paperwork."

"First and last time I've ever heard anyone express that particular sentiment," she says. He shrugs, not caring, as Lydia's phone vibrates. "Hey. Can we stop by my house? My mom just reminded me that we have to light the menorah."

"No problem," Stiles says, switching on his turn signal at the last minute and taking a sharp left. Lydia raises her hands to slow clap, but he cuts his eyes to her in annoyance and she lowers them immediately, folding them in her lap.

"I didn't say anything."

"Yeah, yeah."

They hold hands loosely over the console while they drive, and Lydia doesn't say comment on it but Stiles sees her smile as soon as he entwines their fingers together. Her mom has all the lights on when they do pull into her driveway, and as they walk up to the door together, Lydia kisses him one last time before she turns the doorknob and leads him into the house, calling for her mother as they walk in.

"Hi, Stiles," says Natalie, emerging from the kitchen. "How was your first semester?"

"Great," he says, voice lingering in a strangely polite area. Lydia bites back a laugh, but when she looks up at Stiles, her eyes are crinkled at the edge like she can't believe he would behave in such an outlandish way. "Uh… how are  _you_?"

That really sends Lydia over the edge. A full out smile breaks out across her face.

"I'm well," says Natalie, looking pleased. "Would you like to light the candles with us?"

"He would," Lydia says, speaking for him. "He's going to hold the shamash."

"He's gonna do what?" Stiles asks, but she's already positioning him in front of the menorah as Mrs. Martin turns out all of the lights.

"Just take this candle. Light over here first, then do the next one, then do the next one."

"Isn't this illegal?"

Lydia rolls her eyes.

"Just do it, Stilinski."

He doesn't know why his hand is shaking, but he's in the middle of lighting the third candle when the second one splutters out. He looks around at Lydia in panic, but she just continues to chant and offers him a brief smile before she gently grabs his wrist and pulls it back to the second candle, relighting it with him. And it isn't until Lydia lowers her hand to her side that Stiles realizes why she had done it.

They tell Natalie that they're going to a movie and end up in Stiles' bedroom instead, sweaty and happy and unable to stop looking at each other.

"Why'd you have me do that?" he asks, because he already knows the answer but he is drawing their names on her stomach with his index finger and Lydia is trying not to squirm at the feeling and he wants her to have to answer, wants to hear her saying it.

"Do what?"

"Have me help light the candles."

"Oh."

She lets the word out in a short breath, cheeks reddening slightly, and that's when Stiles gets his final proof. He presses a kiss against her tummy and Lydia finally lets herself release a laugh at the tickle.

"You're planning on keeping me," he fills in for her, slithering up her body and hovering over her. "Aren't you?"

She looks to the side, but he grabs her chin gently and brings her back to him.

"Come on. Just admit it."

"I want to," Lydia whispers. "I want to keep you."

"You can."

"But what if-?"

"Don't care. You can keep me anyways."

Her lips twist up into a smile before she turns to the side and hides her face in the pillow, allowing him to drop kisses on her cheek and then her neck, trailing down to her shoulder.

"Things could happen, Stiles, don't make promises that you can't-"

"If they happen, we deal with them," he murmurs against her skin. "That's all, Lydia. That's it."

She rolls back over, pulling the sheets to her chest.

"Don't promise me anything."

"I promise I have never loved anyone as much as I love you."

"Me too," Lydia says.

"I know."

"No. You don't. Stiles, I  _love_ you."

"I know."

She shakes her head.

"You don't." He doesn't say anything. "I'm not good at… well, whatever this is. But I… I don't want you to give up on me. I want you to be there for all the holidays that I only celebrate out of habit and because my mother wants me to, and I want you learn this part of me just like you learned everything else."

It doesn't matter that she can't look at him when she says it, because it still makes him feel like he's two seconds away from losing his shit. Moments like these are the ones that remind him, quite forcefully, that Lydia is his  _girlfriend._ That he could spend the rest of his life with her, if he plays his cards right. And he doesn't always think of it that way, but he sees the nervous way her eyes are cataloguing his facial expression and he knows that this, right here, sticks. They can stick, if they try hard enough.

"Shit," Stiles says finally. "Four and a half months apart does wonders to your ability to communicate."

She smacks him on the back with his pillow.

"You idiot."

"I can't think of anything else to say about this without getting, like, unreasonably cheesy." Lydia sighs, and he wraps his hands around her wrist so that he can kiss her palm. "Thank you," he says quietly, frowning. "That was… I can't… yeah. Thanks."

Lydia rolls over, this time pulling him with her.

"We're going to nap for twenty minutes," she says, "and then I'm going to put on clothes and you're going to make me nachos."

"Why do you always want nachos after sex?"

"Maybe it has to do with the fact that you're always eating cheese puffs."

"They're  _delicious."_

"They're disgusting and they make your fingers gross."

"Fine. No cheese puffs for the rest of break as long as you promise to at least  _try_ the pirate role playing thing."

"I'm not doing that and you're still not eating cheese puffs."

"Come  _on_."

"That's my final offer."

"And what do I get in return?"

"Laid."

He pauses, considering.

"Yeah, okay. Deal."


	4. Night 4

Lydia has been exhausted the last few times they skyped, but this time is more significant. The bags under her eyes seem to darken everything on her face, causing her to look drawn and almost ghost-like as she offers Stiles a wave in greeting. His first instinct is to feel a panic that sweeps through his body and lands somewhere on the top of his tongue, settling only when it has wreaked havoc on his insides. But it takes Lydia's small, reassuring smile to bring him back to the present and remember that the gauntness of her skin is not supernatural related or due to immediate physical danger.

Still, he frowns and leans in close to the screen, trying to gauge how tired she is just from the look on her face.

"When was the last time you slept?" Stiles demands to know, causing Lydia to pause as she shuffles her papers and shoots ers him a glare.

"Two hours ago," she says. "I'm fine."

"Uh, and how long was this nap that proves you're so 'fine?'"

"Thirty minutes. But I'm a good napper."

"You're good at everything. Not the point," he says. "Lydia, you look like you're not sleeping."

"I have a lot to do." Her voice is airy and light, as if it's not a problem, but Stiles can't help the concern that spikes through him.

Does she seem thinner than usual?

"Lydia," Stiles says impatiently, "you're talking to the King of insomnia here. They have parades in my honor. Festivals. There's a goddamn roast suckling pig."

"Does it have an apple in its mouth?"

"Of course it has a fucking- damn, Lydia, do you think so poorly of the people of Insomnia Land that you would imagine their roast suckling pig without an apple? They're not  _barbarians._ "

She snorts into her sip of coffee, and for a moment she doesn't seem as exhausted as she did before. He considers this to be a victory.

"So," Lydia says. "How were finals for you?"

They haven't talked in two weeks because Lydia always puts up a video call embargo when she needs to study for finals.

"Awesome," Stiles says. "I went home early and wrote essays while Scott studied for tests. He got so frustrated that he went outside and punched a tree. The tree basically bowed to him. It was insane."

"And what are you guys doing for Christmas?" Lydia asks, her voice somewhat wistful. He feels a stab of regret as he answers.

"The usual," shrugs Stiles, trying to downplay his happiness because Lydia is going to be stuck in an apartment at MIT, staring at a blank white wall for the entirety of Christmas. "We're all having dinner. Isaac and Mr. Argent are driving down tomorrow. It's Scott's first Christmas without Kira, so we're gonna play a prank on Derek as a distraction."

"That sounds really great," Lydia says, fiddling with something below the screen, her eyes not on Stiles' face. He'd take it personally if he didn't know how much it sucks to stare at your significant other, who is all the way across the country, and know that it's going to be ages until you get to be with them in person again.

There was a time when Lydia would roll her eyes and he'd be able to nudge her temple with his nose, or when he would get fidgety at the lunch table and she was able to wrap her fingers around his without looking down from the conversation she was having. He'd been so easy with touching her casually that it had caught on until Lydia was just as good at it. But now she's in Massachusetts and he is stuck here trying to remember what it feels like to have her legs wrapped around his waist or his circle thumb circling her hip.

"But, hey, tonight's Hanukkah, right?" he says, trying to make his voice excited. "I've been practicing."

Lydia tilts her head to the side, and he tries not to smirk when he notices that she's wearing blush despite the fact that she is alone in her apartment, skyping with someone who she has snored on more than once.

"Practicing?"

"Yeah," he says, raising his eyebrows and widening his smile as he sits up straighter in his chair and pulls the tiny menorah he'd bought into the view of the camera. "I figured you were lighting these puppies by yourself, so you might want some company."

"And you… practiced?"

"I remembered some stuff," he says, shrugging because he doesn't want to tell her that he watched youtube videos of people lighting their menorahs so he wouldn't sound like a total idiot.

"You bought a menorah."

"Don't make a big deal out of it." She stares at him. "It was on sale." Continues to stare. "Scott practically forced me." That's not even remotely true.

"It's cute," she says, and he holds it closer to the screen. "Of course, I have a nicer one."

"We'll use yours in the future," he says without thinking. Lydia gets out of her chair to go grab her own menorah. She nods in agreement from her bureau and he grins like an idiot when he sees that the tight v-neck t-shirt she's wearing has 'Stanford' stamped across it.

"Alright, Stilinski," she says. "Show me what you've got." He takes out five candles and sticks them in his dinky menorah, then grabs a lighter off of his desk and starts to light the shamash. "Wait."

"On fire here," Stiles replies, annoyed.

"Do you know the words?"

"Uh… ish?"

"Show me."

"Don't laugh at me."

"I probably will. Go on."

He clears his throat.

"Barukh atah Adonai, Eloheinu, melekh ha'olam-"

Lydia raises her eyebrows, but doesn't comment on his pronunciation.

"Blessed are you, Lord our God, ruler of the universe."

"Asher kidishanu b'mitz'votav v'tzivanu."

"Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us."

"L'had'lik neir shel Chanukah. And… yeah. Amein, I guess."

"To light the lights of Hanukkah. Amen. I guess," she adds, mimicking him.

"How'd I do?"

"Passable."

Her thumb is on the lighter, but she's staring at the unlit menorah with a crease between her brow.

"What?" Stiles asks, and she turns back to her computer screen, eyes scanning his face.

"I'm just thinking that I don't want to be doing this again next year. Or the year after that."

"Like, you don't want to do Hanukkah?"

"No." Lydia shakes her head. "I don't want to have to do this without you anymore. It feels… it feels like I'm waiting. Constantly."

His stomach clenches as he taps his index finger anxiously on his knee, trying to figure out how to tell her that he's already been thinking about how to fix it.

"Look," he says, "I've been checking out grad schools up there with my program."

"Up… in Massachusetts?"

Stiles nods.

"I'm assuming you'll try to do grad school at MIT too… I mean it's the best place you could possibly be, why would you leave, right?"

"Right," she says slowly, and he knows she's smiling but he's still nervous.

"So I was thinking that maybe… I don't know… I could, like, go to grad school, and we could-"

"We could  _live_ together," says Lydia, as if this idea has just occurred to her. As if Stiles hasn't literally been building to this since they started the conversation.

He doesn't know if he should be concerned that it took her so long to get to it.

"That's… yeah, no, that's the idea."

Lydia shakes her head, taking a moment to respond.

"You'd… be okay with that? With moving for me?"

Stiles shrugs.

"I'd be going to school too. It wouldn't be  _just_ for you."

"But it's still-"

"Look, as  _great_ as being long distance has been- in case you couldn't tell, that was extremely sarcastic- I'm just… I'm ready to start a life with you, Lyds. I don't wanna do this anymore."

She bites her lip.

"You keep giving things up for me."

"When have I ever-?"

"Stop. You know you do. You never budge an inch, but when you do move, you go a mile."

The strange thing is looking at her over the computer and feeling like all he wants to do is hold onto her and knowing that he can't because Lydia Martin had actually been willing to keep dating him even though she's all the way across the country.

They'd really only been together for half a year before she had to go to school, and they've had summers together, but sometimes it doesn't feel the same as actually being in a relationship with someone. And Stiles thinks that they've mastered this whole long-distance thing. He wants new challenges. He wants Lydia to yell at him about taking the trash out, and he wants to get mad at her for using up all the hot water.

Stiles wants the stupidest shit with Lydia, and he wants them to be okay through all of that.

"Uh, speaking of movement," he says. "I did something that might make you mad?"

She blinks.

"What?"

"So, um, I know that you're staying at school for the winter session for very important, stately reasons." Lydia's mouth twitches, but she doesn't say anything. "Except I sort of couldn't fall asleep three nights ago, and so I googled the first word that popped into my head which obviously led me to google a bunch of other random shit-"

"Naturally."

"-and I somehow, I don't know, ended up with a plane ticket to Logan airport for the week after Christmas?" Lydia's mouth pops open, and Stiles almost wants to take a screencap, because it is very rare that he can catch her off guard like this. He's going to tell Scott about this later, and Scott will  _totally_ high five him, unless Stiles is Lydia-less for the rest of his life, which would mean Scott wouldn't high five him at all and Stiles is going to have to use these plane tickets to fly down to Lydia and hold a boom-box outside of her apartment door and beg her to take him back because literally he cannot give up on being the person Lydia Martin is in love with now that he knows what it is like to have that and he can't even remember what  _movie_ that stupid boom box thing is from in the first place. "If… if you don't want me to spend any time with you, I can walk around the city and stuff… leave you alone."

Lydia bristles.

"I cannot believe it took you not being able to sleep to buy those tickets, Stiles Stilinski."

"Wha-?"

"I didn't want to ask, but, really, how did it take you that long to-?"

He presses his lips together.

"Alright, alright. A simple 'thank you' would suffice." Lydia releases an airy laugh. "You seem happy."

"I miss you."

"You gonna bring a giant town car to pick me up at the airport?"

"No, but I'll make you a sign because that is how much I love you."

"Wait, really?"

"Yes, really."

"Can it say 'Welcome home, Big Boy'?"

"Oh, absolutely," Lydia says, nodding seriously. "That's definitely what it's going to say."

"You can take me for those cannolis you like."

"Or we can spend the entire break in my apartment."

"We can go see the little ducklings that crossed the road!"

"It's 'Make Way For Ducklings.' Please don't let anyone in Boston hear you say that. I say that because I value your life."

"Oh, I can wear my 'MIT Trophy Husband' t-shirt in public with you!"

"You actually had that made? That wasn't a joke?"

"Hell no. I texted you when it got here, remember?"

"Awfully presumptuous of you, Mr. Stilinski."

He smacks a kiss towards the camera, and Lydia puffs out her lips in return.

"That's because I have a ten year plan, Mrs. Stilinski," he says. "And it's gonna  _work_."


	5. Night 5

By the time Stiles gets back to the apartment, the winter sun is already settling low over the Boston skyline. With his ears tucked underneath the thick ushanka that Scott had given him when he had moved two years ago, Stiles should probably feel reasonably warm. But the black peacoat that Lydia had forced him to buy isn't warm enough to get him through the winters here, and it's not like he's weak enough to bother with a scarf and gloves. Scarves and gloves are for suckers, and Stiles Stilinski is no sucker.

Still, he's relieved to reach their building, which has a lobby with heat blasting into it, and Stiles takes the stairs two at a time, so that he's practically sweating by the time he gets into the apartment. He's quiet as he turns the key, because this week is Lydia's finals week, and he never knows what he's going to be coming home to. A few weeks ago, he'd gotten back from the library to see Lydia pacing back and forth across their living room with her flashcards spread all over the floor. Three days ago, Stiles had opened the door to see Lydia sitting on their kitchen counter with a lecture blasting loudly from their speakers as she manically stirred at batter that he would later learn was supposed to be cookie dough.

It did not taste like cookie dough.

But today, the apartment is relatively silent as Stiles drops the grocery bags on the kitchen table and takes off his hat and coat, throwing them both on a chair. A glance at the living room shows it to be empty, so he heads into the bedroom and flicks on the light. She is asleep under the covers, her mouth parted as she breathes heavily, and when her brows crease slightly in her sleep, it makes Stiles smile.

He smiles harder when he notices that she's hugging one of the decorative throw pillows that she keeps on their bed, and that's when he flicks the light off again. Stiles closes the door behind himself and kicks off his pants before he lifts the covers and crawls into bed with Lydia, tucking his nose into her neck as he wraps his arms around her body and pulls her close to him.

Lydia stirs slightly, blinking while Stiles watches her wake up.

"Hey, hot stuff," he says.

"You're cold," she replies.

"Always with the science, even when you're sleepy."

"It's making  _me_  cold."

"You're the one who wanted me to try making latkes tonight, so you're the one who has to deal with how cold my fingers are when I get back from the store."

Lydia groans, then lets out a startled yelp when Stiles splays cold fingers out across her stomach.

"You're torturing me. This is actual torture."

He slides his hands lower.

"Oh, come on," Stiles murmurs into her ear. "We both know I have far more effective methods of torturing you if I want to."

He feels, rather than sees, the laugh that Lydia releases when he says that. It makes Stiles push his body closer to hers under the covers and lay some more claim to the warmth that she is exuding from having been in bed while he was out being a productive member of society.

"I've been so focused, I think I forgot that I was going to crash if I kept going the way I was," admits Lydia.

"How did you forget when I was literally standing behind you saying 'you're going to crash if you keep-'?"

"Oh, come on, Stiles, we both know I never listen to you."

"Not even when I'm right?"

"Those times are the  _worst_ times."

"So this time is the worst time?"

Lydia pauses, struggling.

"Yes."

He does a celebratory happy dance under the covers, wiggling against Lydia's body, and she lies perfectly still with her eyes on the ceiling as Stiles bumps repeatedly against her, rolling his hips in a way that would probably look  _amazing_ if anybody could actually see the motions. When he adds jazz hands for extra effect, Lydia bites her bottom lip and looks out the window as though she is praying for their neighbors to break in and steal her so that Stiles will no longer have anyone to dance against.

"It's a mark of how rarely you are correct that you have a specific dance routine down for shoving it in my face."

"My talents are wasted on you."

Lydia turns around, cocooning herself into his arms and shivering slightly as she feels how cold he is.

"Not all of them," she says cloyingly. Stiles shifts onto his back so that Lydia can put her head on his chest.

"Have we finally moved into the portion of finals where you try to focus on your memorization while I go down on you?"

"Not for another two days," Lydia says regretfully. "It's in my planner, though."

"You're killing me, Lyds."

"That has, of course, been my plan this whole time."

He kisses the top of her head before grabbing his phone from where it had gotten lost within the covers. The lock screen is a selfie that Lydia and Scott had taken when Scott had visited a few weeks ago, and Stiles doesn't know if he's ever going to ever have the heart to change it because he  _loves_ the way Scott is grinning lopsidedly at the camera as Lydia sticks her tongue out at Stiles' phone.

"Hey, it's sunset," Stiles says regretfully. "Things to see, people to do."

"I'm a people, you can do me."

"We gotta light the candles first."

"And make latkes."

"Can I do you before I do the latkes?"

"No, because I didn't have lunch and I'm getting hungry."

" _Killing_ me," he says again, getting out of bed and squirming into a discarded pair of pajama bottoms that had been lying on the floor.

"That's  _my_  ten year plan," Lydia calls after him as he walks out of the room, and she lets out a shriek of laughter when he ducks back in and throws one of their decorative pillows at her head.

Stiles has already pulled five candles out of the little box on the windowsill by the time Lydia wanders out of their bedroom, yawning widely and pushing her hair away from her face with her hand. She stumbles towards him in nothing but a white t-shirt that is definitely his and a red pair of panties that make it difficult to keep his eyes away from her ass.

"Got the fire?" she asks, standing behind him and pressing her forehead against his back to block out the light of the room.

"I'll grab the lights," he says, and she nods, running her nose up and down the planes of his back until he stretches forward to grab the light. Lydia takes the lighter from him and stands next to him, lighting the shamash as she yawns.

"Barukh atah Adonai, Eloheinu, melekh ha'olam," she begins, her voice raspy with sleep, and it takes her glancing up at Stiles to jolt him into saying the prayer with her, his voice joining hers on the low chant. They finish the prayers together, six candles illuminating their faces as they go over the words that are now familiar to Stiles.

After it's over, they turn all of the lights in the apartment back on and Stiles hooks his phone up to the speaker in the kitchen, playing Lydia's study playlist softly while she grabs her books from the couch and lays them out across the kitchen table. He hates cooking without music, and latkes is long, annoying work, but Lydia can't concentrate when he plays music with words. Stiles picks up his grater and thrusts the potato vigorously against it and thinks the words to the piano covers that are playing, singing a line every once in awhile when he can't hold it in.

"Is latkes my present?" Lydia asks as Stiles pops them into the oven and sets the timer. He shakes his head without turning around.

"Nah," he says. "The sour cream is your present. The latkes are just fun."

"I don't want it. It goes bad so quickly."

"Fine. I actually got you the book that you tried to tell me you weren't interested in reading."

Lydia frowns.

"What book?"

"You know. The one at Barnes and Noble with the pretty dress on the cover, and you kept staring at it?"

She straightens up, eyes horrified.

"I don't want to read that!"

"Yeah. You do."

"That's just… that's  _absurd._ "

"I left it on your bookshelf so you can pretend to not read it, but it's there if you want it."

Lydia wrinkles her nose.

"Why are you only observant when it's embarrassing for me?"

"Strictly for present-buying and blackmail purposes."

"The vibrator you got me last year explains both."

"Well, I didn't think you would actually  _use_ it. Why the hell would you need a vibrator? I'm literally always home."

"Eventually I'm going to get bored of having sex with you and that's why we have Louie."

Stiles pauses as he rummages through the fridge, looking for something to tide him over.

"That," he says lowly, "is a  _horrible_ thing to say."

Lydia grins, looking proud of herself.

"I practiced."

" _Horrible_."

"I think I did a great job."

"Terrible, horrible, awful."

"Maybe my present will make up for it," she says. "Can you sit down? You're making me nervous."

"No I'm not."

"Okay, I'll rephrase: sit the fuck down. You're being annoying."

"Honesty is so important in a relationship, Lydia."

She refrains from rolling her eyes, which he's very grateful for, and instead closes her book as Stiles sits across the table from her.

"So, I've been thinking about what you asked me," she says, pushing some hair behind her ear for something to do with her hands. "And… I've decided that it's a good idea."

Stiles blinks.

"You… you know I ask you for twenty million things eighty million times a day, right? You're gonna have to get, like, way more specific here."

"I'm saying that I'm saying  _yes_ ," Lydia says emphatically. "Use your brain, Stilinski. God knows I love you for it."

"Wait, are you saying-?"

"Yes."

"You're actually gonna let me-?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"Tomorrow."

"We're just gonna… do it? No planning?"

"How much forethought does this need?"

"Did  _you_ just ask  _me_  that?"

"It's something we both want. I don't know why it took this long."

He beams at her.

"So you're actually just gonna walk down to the pound and get a dog with me."

"Yes."

"And you're gonna let me name it after a Star Wars character and everything?"

"I figure that part is inevitable."

He whoops, jumping out of his chair and pulling Lydia out of hers. Stiles kisses her first, then hugs her, and when Lydia wraps her arms around his neck, he spins them around in circles in their warm, light-soaked kitchen.

"Anything but Jar Jar Binks," Lydia adds when he stops spinning them.

Stiles kisses her again, his brain buzzing with the knowledge that they're going to get a dog together and they're going to live in this apartment and study and everything is going to be okay because they have electric blankets and a  _dog_ and they have it all together and it's going to be okay, it's all going to be fine.

Stiles has never felt better.

"I gotta tell Scott," he says, pulling back. "Oh my god, I gotta tell him right now! He's gonna be so  _excited_."

He leaves Lydia standing in the kitchen as he dives for his laptop, pulling FaceTime open on his computer and calling Scott.

"Hey!" says Scott, waving. "Is Lydia there? Happy Hanukkah!"

"Happy Hanukkah to Izzy, too," Stiles says, and Scott's girlfriend, standing in the background, turns around and waves to Stiles.

"Hi," she says, coming over and resting her chin on Scott's shoulder. "How was your night?"

"Dude," says Stiles. "Lydia's letting us get a dog."

"Woah," Scott says, looking awed. "That's a really big deal."

Stiles shrugs.

"Whatever. I knew she'd say yes."

Lydia, from the kitchen, releases a cough that oddly sounds like "yeah right." Stiles chooses to ignore this in favor of offering his best friend two thumbs up.


	6. Night 6

The shower is running when Stiles finally gets his ass off of the couch and meanders into his and Lydia's bedroom. He's been vegging out all day, but she'd started getting ready hours ago, and it makes Stiles intensely glad that he will never care that much about his own appearance. Lydia's day had started off with her on the floor of the living room, painting her nails as Stiles binged watched a show that Scott and Izzy have been raving about. Or, he had tried to binge watch, but Lydia had been in nothing but a sports bra and shorts, and his eyes kept wandering.

At one point, after her nails had dried, he was on the floor with her, but Lydia told him that it didn't throw her off schedule that much, so Stiles didn't feel too bad.

She had spent an hour doing trial runs of makeup, had tried on her dress and panicked when she realized that Stiles had ruined the bra she was planning on wearing by running it through the dryer. Lydia had spent the rest of the afternoon lingerie shopping before she got home and jumped into the shower.

All this, and Stiles is still binge-watching the same show with Luke cuddled up on his lap, occasionally jumping off of the couch to bark at the door when people pass in the hallway outside the door.

They have very productive days together.

But now the sun is dipping behind the buildings out their window, so when Stiles walks into the bathroom, he isn't surprised to see Lydia through the plexiglass door, purple loofah in hand.

"Hey," he says, yawning slightly. "You're cutting it close on time."

"Whose fault is that?"

"Mine. Definitely mine."

He grabs Lydia's towel and uses it to wipe steam from the mirror, causing her to offer him a look of disdain before she goes back to shampooing her hair.

"If you think I'm going to forgive you for wrecking my bra, you are so very mistaken."

"Hey now," says Stiles, reaching into the mirror cabinet for his shaving cream and razor. "Whose fault is it that you haven't learned to do your own laundry?"

"It's yours."

"You had a fifty fifty shot and somehow you have still failed me."

He hears her laugh echo around the bathroom, and he wants to fucking wrap himself in it as it bounces energetically across the walls. He thinks, somewhat giddily, that he makes her happy. Stiles doesn't know how long it's going to take him to get over that, but he's not there yet.

"Do you know where my fancy asshole shoes are?" Stiles asks, making a face at himself in the mirror as he lathers his cheeks.

"By the closet," Lydia says, turning off the water and emerging from the shower. He hands her the towel wordlessly, and Lydia bumps him lightly with her hip so that she can reach the moisturizer she has in their cabinet. "And you're letting me tie your tie, because last time it was a disaster. I'm not going through that again."

"Fine by me," says Stiles. "When am I getting notes on behavior for tonight?"

"I don't have-"

"Don't insult me."

"I wrote them on flashcards and left them in your pocket."

"You're gonna have to read them out loud to me because there is absolutely no chance of me not turning them into paper airplanes before I read them."

Lydia's eyes roll up to the ceiling as she twists her wedding ring back onto her fourth finger, and she slaps his ass as she leaves the bathroom, which is probably supposed to be a punishment but absolutely does not feel like one.

By the time Lydia finishes doing her hair, Stiles is already dressed, so he sits on their bed and pretends to scroll through his phone. In actuality, he is cracking random jokes to distract her, a process which comes to a screeching stop when she strategically puts on her heels before she puts on her dress. Stiles shuts right up, and it's impossible not to notice her smirk as she applies red lipstick.

"I can do your tie now," Lydia offers when she finishes her makeup. And that is how Stiles ends up standing at the edge of his bed while the living, breathing wet dream that is his wife ties his tie wearing nothing but a bra, panties, and a pair of stilettos.

A few minutes later, she is still going on about a list of subjects he is not allowed to speak about with her boss, including (but not limited to) the explosion of mount vesuvius, bubbles, the color pink, Taylor Swift's new album, the crusades, and vasectomies. Stiles zips her up into her dress and tries to focus on what she's saying instead of the way her hair curls past the lacy black clasp of her bra.

"And one more thing," Lydia says as Stiles snaps the top button and taps her with his index finger to let her know he's finished. She turns around and slides her hands up his chest, staring at him with eyes that he has decided are at their best when they blink sleepily at him through her hair. And when they are smiling the way her mouth can't. And when they're looking at him like she still hasn't quite figured him out.

"I'm listening."

"You have to stop introducing me to people as your 'partner-in-sin.'"

His smile freezes.

"But how will they know that we live in sin if I don't introduce you like that?"

"Stiles," Lydia says impatiently. "We don't live in sin. We are  _married_."

The ring rests on Lydia's shoulder, the gold band glinting against her mint colored dress, and Stiles stares at it, horrified. His mouth slides open slightly as he lifts the silver band and turns his wrist, inspecting it.

"Hey, Lydia-?"

"No," she says, brushing wrinkles off his shoulders. "We cannot get a divorce just so you can introduce me as your partner-in-sin."

"We would get to keep the stuff!"

Lydia groans, wrapping her arms around him and laying her head on his shoulder.

"You're lucky you look so good in a suit."

Stiles likes how easily she can reach him when she's in heels, and as he sighs against her, feeling

contentedness slide over him.

"Or else what? We're already married. Nothing you can do now."

"Ah.  _Now_  he remembers the marriage."

He actually rarely forgets that he married actual  _Lydia Martin_ , and when he does remember, it hits him like a blow to the stomach, leaving him completely stupid for a few moments as everything seems to flash before his eyes.

"I'm gonna be six feet under before I forget the fact that I married you."

She squeezes him a bit harder before she lets go, grabbing at his hand as she leads him into the living room. Luke is at their heels almost immediately, having been shut out of their bedroom while they were getting dressed, but Stiles scoops him up before he can get to Lydia.

"Sorry, my young Padawan learner," he says, kissing the top of Luke's head. "Your mom's gonna freak out if you ruin her dress."

"It's true," Lydia says, briefly scratching Luke's neck as she walks across the room to the candles. "As cute as you are in the doggie yarmulke my mom sent us."

Luke squirms in Stiles' arms as Lydia sets to lighting all of the candles, carefully moving across the menorah and murmuring the chant. Stiles whispers the words into the dog's ear- Luke yips quietly at "she-asah nisim laavoteinu" for no apparent reason- and takes the present that Lydia hands to him as she kisses him on the cheek.

"Happy Hanukkah."

"Yours is at the place," says Stiles, "so I'll wait to open this one, yeah?"

Lydia frowns.

"What do you mean it's at the place?"

"We're gonna leave early so we can do it."

"It's at the hotel where the benefit is being held?"

"Exactly," confirms Stiles.

"When you say do it-?"

"I don't mean sex, don't worry."

"Oh." He doesn't know for sure, but he thinks she seems a little disappointed.

The air is chilly as Stiles pulls up to the curb and waits for Lydia to get into the car, a concession he doesn't normally make, but he's actually trying to be helpful tonight. She's been nervous about this benefit for weeks. It's something her department has thrown together to spread awareness about the medical research they've been doing, and Lydia had been selected to speak. Normally, she wouldn't be anxious about speaking publicly, but it's been years since Lydia performed in this particular capacity. She's been going over her speech in her head at the most random of times over the past few weeks, despite Stiles constantly reaffirming that she's going to be fine- she's  _always_ fine. He is fully prepared to be proud of her when she walks off-stage.

But Lydia's nervousness also means that he has to behave more than he usually would, which isn't so much a problem as it is a frustration. Stiles is used to coming these things and not giving a shit the entire way through. They take advantage of the open bar and judge other people in between talking to the people Lydia is supposed to impress, and at the end of the night they dance with her hand pressed against his neck until they can finally stumble home and he can pull out all of the bobby pins that have been stabbing her scalp for hours.

At certain points there has also been bathroom sex, but that's only in the fancier hotels.

"You wanna go over the speech one more time?" Stiles asks gently, and Lydia nods, letting out a breath before she launches into it. He doesn't listen to her, instead focusing on the road and the way the tenor of her voice knocks into his brain.

It's one of those places with mandatory valet parking, so Stiles hands his keys over with only slight anxiety clenching at his stomach and allows some dude with a man-bun to drive the car away. He offers Lydia his elbow, and they walk into the hotel among the small swarm of well-dressed people, for a moment getting lost in the buzz of their conversation. The other people move, as a group, to the coat room, but Stiles leads Lydia in the opposite direction.

"We'll go later," he says. "I have to give you your present, remember?"

"I don't trust you."

"In a good way, though. Yeah?"

"I'll tell you when I've decided."

There's a door that has been propped open, and Stiles goes over to it immediately, allowing Lydia to walk in first. The lights have already flicked on, and as Lydia looks around the empty ballroom, Stiles knows she's got him figured out as soon as she sees the piano. Lydia spins around to face him as he closes the door.

"You're going to play something for me?"

Whenever he's in the mood to play piano, it usually comes in brief spurts that last for three days and don't resurface for months at a time. He's been playing since he was a little kid, but the frequency has waned over the years, and Lydia hadn't even known how proficient he was at it until they were three months into their relationship.

The first time she'd seen him play piano had ended in an obsession with his hands that had actually ended up giving him genuine wrist pain, and he's utilized the skill for nefarious purposes more times than he's proud of. But tonight it's something else, and as Stiles sits down at the piano and tosses his coat to the floor, he feels a gravity that he doesn't usually feel when he's playing music.

"So," he says, "Um… so there's this song."

"I really hope so," Lydia replies, leaning on the piano.

"Can I finish, please?" Stiles asks sarcastically.

"Probably not without me interrupting."

"Okay, do you remember that time we danced together when we were sixteen?"

"I do, funnily enough."

"There was this… this song playing. And I wasn't really listening to it, at first, because it was the first time you were… I dunno… really  _freaking_ close to my body-" Lydia starts to smile, shaking her head at him as he speaks "-and I just… couldn't stop thinking the way your shampoo smelled or how small you were or how you were letting yourself be vulnerable with me and I didn't know why but I was really fucking glad."

"I didn't know why either. I mean, not until later."

"The point is that you walked away from me, and I started listening to the song, and the lyrics just… punched me in the gut. 'Your mind, it makes me wanna know you more. So tell me what we have in store. Tell me everything.'"

When Lydia rests her hands on the surface of the piano, her wedding ring clacks quietly against it. And that is what they'd had in store. That's what they were heading to, all this time.

"I went home and I found the song and downloaded it and listened to it on repeat for weeks. Made a CD for my jeep, and it was the first song, and I put other songs on it too but… I kept playing that one over and over again. And then, you and me, we kept getting closer," says Stiles, knocking his knuckles against the closed piano cover, "and even when we were apart, it sort of still felt like it fit us. Every time. I would listen to it when we were becoming friends, or when I missed you so much I could feel it… everywhere."

"And you never told me about this. Why?"

He lifts one shoulder, tilting his head towards it.

"I guess because it felt like it was from before we were really us, and it didn't necessarily seem like it applied to us anymore by the time we got together. It stayed with me, and it kind of shifted to fit us, and it hurt in different ways, and I didn't know how to explain that to you because I don't think I can say it to myself." Stiles speaks slowly, letting the ends of words linger longer in his mouth than they need to so that he can think of how to present his next sentence. It's rare that he takes such care to speak, but when Lydia smiles at him, he thinks he's said it well enough.

There's some sadness lingering in her smile from a place in their history when they hadn't known that everything was going to be okay.

"So my Hanukkah present is the song?"

"I sort of sat down at a piano a few weeks ago and started banging out a cover of it." Stiles pushes up the dust cover and starts playing a random, mindless melody as he speaks. "So, um, I hope this is okay."

"Stiles."

He starts to play because he doesn't know how to handle the emotion in her face as his fingers move over the keys, not needing sheet music to play the song because he has been running it over in his head every time Lydia had needed to practice her speech. The music tugs at something in Stiles, and when he looks up at Lydia in the middle of the song, he realizes that she's blinking back tears as she stares down at him.

"What?" he mouths, but Lydia shakes her head and waits for him to finish before she tells him.

"Remember that time I was in your head?" she asks rhetorically, laughing at little as she wipes a tear from the corner of her eye. "I think… I think I heard that song. I think I kept it, too."

He gets up to kiss her, but Lydia shakes her head and points to the piano, and Stiles dutifully sits back down.

She makes him play it again and again for her, and they're far too late to the party but she doesn't stop smiling the whole night, moving effortlessly through her speech and never leaving his side when she isn't on stage.

Later that night, he plays the chords across her stomach and hums the tune into her thighs. Lydia's unsteady breaths, harshly rushing against the air, add to what they've already made together.

_Your eyes, your eyes tell me everything._

_The first, the last and in between, that's everything._

_Your kiss, your kiss so wet I lose my breath, your lips erase the old regrets, of anything._

_You're not just a girl, you're more like the air and sea._

_I want you so desperately and nothing's gonna keep us apart._

_Your voice, its whispering against my neck,_

_Your lips, erase the old regrets of anything._

_Your mind, it makes me wanna know you more,_

_So tell me what we have in store, tell me everything._

_You can say anything, and you can say anything, and you can say anything to me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song is Not Just a Girl by She Wants Revenge, and you can find it on the Teen Wolf 3b soundtrack!


	7. Night 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suggested listening towards the end: Dear Theodosia from Hamilton.

When Stiles opens the door, Natalie is standing there with a large gift bag in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. Her eyes crinkle as she inspects the large apartment, sweeping around Lydia's furnishings and the pictures that have been hung up on the wall. When they'd moved back to California, Lydia had gone furniture crazy upon realizing her mother would be able to drop in at any time to inspect their living conditions.

"Hey, Nat. Come on in."

"Stiles, dear," says Natalie, coming in and kissing him on the cheek. "I brought you some cream for your rash. Lydia said it was getting better but I wanted to be sure."

Stiles looks over at Lydia as he closes the door. She raises Luke's paw and waves it at him as he flips her off behind Natalie's back.

"Mom," Lydia says, ignoring Stiles' bad behavior and getting out of her chair. "Happy Hanukkah."

The two of them hug while Stiles grabs the wine bottle from Natalie's hands and rummages through their junk drawer for the corkscrew. Luke, who has escaped from Lydia's arms, runs in and out of Stiles' legs, panting excitedly. He loves having company- he probably enjoys other people more than Stiles or Lydia do.

"I love your dress," says Natalie, holding Lydia at arms length and inspecting her. Thirty minutes ago, she had been walking around the apartment wearing one of Stiles' plaid button downs and no pants, but she can morph into 'public Lydia' in fifteen minutes flat at this point in her life. Now, as Lydia does a small twirl for her mom, her skirt flaring out across her thighs, Stiles gets to pair it with the image her dancing around in her ankle socks with the buttons on his shirt undone as he played that song that always got her to hum along, even though she hates singing. "Stiles, did you make your famous latkes tonight?"

He hands Natalie a wineglass and she takes a sip, moving into the living room towards the candles. The sun has already set, so they're a little bit late, but Stiles hands Lydia her own glass and sneaks a kiss to her cheek as Natalie greets Luke.

"Uh, yeah," he says, still looking at Lydia. "They're in the oven."

"And your chocolate covered Hanukkah oreos?"

It's Izzy's recipe, and the first time Stiles had made it, Lydia had ended up covered in chocolate and so horrified by her choices that she hadn't been able to look at food until she finally got a chance to go to the gym and burn it off.

"Of course," he says. Lydia shudders slightly where she stands next to him.

"Well, we should go ahead and light, I think," Lydia says. "And, mom, if you feel the need to take home the oreos, please do."

"Yeah, it's fine," Stiles agrees, wrapping an arm around Lydia's shoulder. "We have plenty of extra chocolate sauce." She elbows him in the side, eyes wide with fury. "What? That's the best part."

"Oh my g-"

"I'll take the shamash," Natalie interjects briskly. "Lydia, is this a new menorah?"

"Wedding present," Lydia replies, smiling at it fondly. "We didn't start using it until we moved, though."

"The other one is in storage somewhere."

He misses the old one, the way it had been elegant but still small, because Lydia had bought it for her apartment when she had to stay at MIT. He had liked the way it stuck with them throughout the years- how he would watch her light it on Skype and then, one day, he was actually watching her light it in person, their voices fusing together as they said the chant. The menorah had represented a time in their life that was hurriedly patched together, just bandaged up so that they could be them. But now the menorah- from Lydia's maternal grandmother- is big, ornate, and heavy. Now that they've moved to a bigger apartment, Lydia doesn't put it away even when it's not Hanukkah.. She keeps the menorah sitting on the radio cabinet that is tucked in the corner of their living room, on  _display_ , and sometimes it will catch Stiles' eye and he will think about opening their wedding presents. How Lydia had sat cross legged on the couch and he had been sprawled across the floor, reading the tags on the gifts out loud to her while she wrote them down.

The wedding ring on her finger kept flashing light into his eyes as she wrote, but he hadn't minded at all.

"Ready?" Natalie asks brightly, striking a match, and that's when Stiles' phone starts to vibrate in his pocket.

"Sure," he says, tugging out his phone and checking the screen. Scott's contact picture beams at him, but Stiles ends the call and stuffs the phone back into his pocket. Promptly five seconds later, as Lydia and her mom begin the prayer, it begins to vibrate again. Annoyed, Stiles shoves his hand into the pocket, picks up the call, and ends it quickly.

The phone vibrates again, and Stiles groans, annoyed, as he picks it up to hang up once more. But there's a text in capital letters flashing on the front on the screen, spelling out Izzy's name in a way that can only be considered panicked, and there's a typo at the end. The phone starts to vibrate again in Stiles' hands.

"Stiles?" Lydia says, and when he looks up, he realizes that both Lydia and Natalie have stopped the prayer and are staring at him, befuddled. He shakes his head, hands trembling as he unlocks the phone.

"Scott?"

"Stiles, she's going into labor! We're… we're at the hospital, she's already a few centimeters dilated and she's having a baby."

"Oh  _shit_ ," Stiles says, mouth falling open. "Be right there, dude."

He looks at Lydia, and the phone slips out of his hand, clattering to the floor.

"Izzy?" she guesses. "Stiles, she's a month early."

"Come on," Natalie says, setting the shamash into it's place and walking into the foyer. "Stiles, where did you put my coat?"

"F-front hall?" he says, eyes still on Lydia. "Scott's having a baby," he adds.

"I heard." Lydia looks like she's torn between laughing and crying, so instead she walks up to him and kisses him, cupping his jaw tenderly as he continues to gape. "We have to go."

"I didn't even pack my bag!"

"We can go home tonight and drive up to see them again tomorrow," she reminds him, keeping her voice soothing. "It's good that you made your push playlist two months ago."

"I wanted to add to it! Labor can go for hours. Lydia, what if-?"

"None of that crazy stuff you researched is going to happen," she promises, stopping him immediately. "Come on, Stiles. It's Scott. He's the best person we know. He doesn't deserve any of that. It's all going to be okay."

He snatches her hand and squeezes it tightly, and Lydia lets him, dragging him out to her mother's car. Natalie gets in the front, but Lydia slides in next to Stiles in the backseat and lets him rest his head on her shoulder as he stares blankly ahead, knee fiddlings.

Stiles and Izzy had become close before he left to live in Boston with Lydia, and moving back home had allowed the two of them to slip effortlessly back into their familiarity with each other. He is fully aware of the fact that he is being absolutely insane, but he still can't shake all of the fear that seems to be prickling through his body as he gags and chokes on what-ifs. Eventually, Lydia puts his hand on her lap and begins tracing his name onto his palm with her finger- his real name, the long one, the one that she'd had to say at their wedding.

There's a fog of anxiety that is clouding Stiles' mind as he thinks about his hours of research and every possible catastrophe and everything that could happen that could hurt Scott, who doesn't deserve to be hurt and who should have everything go perfectly in his life because everything used to be a mess and now it isn't anymore but sometimes Stiles is forcefully, violently shoved back into the time when it wasn't okay and his heart starts beating faster and-

"Breathe," Lydia murmurs in his ear, low and quiet. She starts to hum under her breath, the song that Stiles always plays for her on piano when he doesn't know what else to play, and the one that his mom used to sing to his dad as they danced around the kitchen. Stiles sings it for Lydia when he's waking her up in the morning, or when she's falling asleep on him. He sings it at midnight when they're in the kitchen making waffles, dead tired but too wrapped up in life to go to sleep. He sings it when everything is going to be okay, and now she's singing it for him.

They're only forty minutes away from Beacon Hills, and Lydia manages to keep Stiles calm through the ride. After all these years together, she knows how to do it with fucking  _aplomb_. He's grateful for it, because, had he been by himself, he probably would have worked himself into a frenzy.

Nevertheless, when they finally crash into the front desk and demand to know where Melissa McCall is, Stiles is a weird form of almost calm.

"She's on the th-"

"Stiles!" says Melissa's voice, and he turns around to see her in scrubs, rushing toward him and Lydia with a look of determination on her face.

"How is he?" Stiles asks immediately. Lydia elbows him. "How is she?" he corrects.

"They're all fine," Melissa says, turning around and leading them towards the elevator. "Izzy's six centimeters dilated."

"So she hasn't started pushing yet," Lydia surmises, wrinkling her nose as she says it.

"No."

"Is Scott okay?" Stiles blurts out, squeezing Lydia's hand hard as he says it.

"He's going to be glad you're here," Melissa tells him. "He's a disaster. And this part is the worst part because you just have to wait."

" _This_  is the worst part?" Lydia asks, raising her eyebrows.

"All of it is the worst part," concedes Melissa.

"That's more like it."

They end up sitting in plastic chairs in a badly lit waiting room, sipping on terrible tasting coffee that Stiles had grabbed them from the cafeteria when he needed to move. Eventually, Lydia pulls out her phone and they start watching a movie, something mindless from Netflix instant. When he can't stare at the screen anymore, Stiles sprawls out in the chairs, puts his head in Lydia's lap, and she strokes his hair as he tries to fall asleep.

He's soothed and cared for and, honestly, almost asleep when Scott finally appears in front of them, speed-walking down the hallway towards Stiles and Lydia with a tired smile on his face.

"Hey," Stiles says, scrambling up and out of Lydia's lap. He can hear her trying not to laugh next to him and chooses to ignore this.

"Just wanted to let you know that she's gonna start pushing soon," Scott says, grabbing Stiles into a hug. "Thanks for waiting."

"Jesus," Stiles replies. "No problem. Is she doing okay?"

"She's an OBGYN. She knew what to expect," Scott tells him, rubbing a tired hand over his eyes. "But, yeah, knowing and experiencing are two different things."

"I'm sure she'll do great," Lydia says warmly, winding her arms around his middle in a bear hug. "Congratulations, Scott. You've been a father since you were seventeen, but now it's actually official."

"I gotta run," says Scott. "But I'll talk to you guys after?"

"Of course," Lydia confirms. "Do you honestly think I would be able to move him?" she adds, pointing to Stiles with her thumb.

Scott jogs back down the hallway, and Stiles collapses into a plastic chair again, his eyes wide.

"Lydia," he whispers as she sits next to him.

"Yes?"

"Scott's having a  _baby._ "

"Oh, I know."

"Scott is having a baby and last weekend I did an actual keg stand," says Stiles to the wall.

"Oh, sweetie."

He frowns and turns to her.

"What?"

"I almost don't want to tell you."

" _What_?"

"You didn't do a keg stand. You screamed at all of us to count and then rolled over onto the floor, hit your head, and fell asleep."

"Oh. Fuck."

"Definitely the last time I ever take you to a wine tasting."

He burrows into his chair and lets Lydia hunker down into him in any way that she can. It takes several moments of wiggling before she gets comfortable, but she ends up sprawled across him. When her hand is stroking lazily up and down his chest, they talk about work and Luke and that funny video that Stiles keeps forgetting to show her, and they are in the middle of a half-hearted discussion about whether cheesecake is better when it is flavored when Melissa strides up to them, beaming.

"Hey, uncle," she says to Stiles.

"They're okay? I mean, the baby's early, isn't it?"

"All three of them. Perfect."

"Seriously?"

"Izzy suspects that werewolf-lore might have something to do with it."

"Is it a girl or a boy?" Lydia asks as they begin to walk, following closely behind Melissa.

"Scott wants to tell you."

"We can go back there?"

"Mhm. They moved her into a smaller room."

"Did you hook her up with the best one?"

Melissa smiles, opening the door for them.

"I would  _never_  abuse my status in this hospital."

"She totally abused her status," Stiles stage-whispers to Lydia, but whatever her reply was going to be dies in her throat. Following her gaze, Stiles sees Scott sitting in a chair next to Izzy's bed, his hand sprawled across the belly of the baby she's holding. The kid is so small that Scott's entire hand fits across her stomach, and it strikes a new type of fear in Stiles' heart. Because this small, delicate thing looks so… breakable. It would be so easy for it to all just fall apart. And now there is someone else to protect. His niece.

Scott looks up at Stiles, looking exhausted and teary.

"Hey," says Scott.

"Hey," replies Stiles.

"You want to meet her?"

"It's… you had a girl?"

"Gabrielle," Izzy says. "For Scott's grandmother."

"That's really beautiful," says Lydia, eyes sweeping over Izzy's form. Stiles looks over at her, trying to catalogue the same things Lydia is. Izzy's hazel eyes are alert, but her blond hair is still sweaty and messy. She hasn't moved her eyes away from her baby the entire time they've been in the room, which Stiles doesn't blame her for.

"I'm calling her Ellie," Scott informs them as he gently lifts the baby out of Izzy's arms.

"She's two minutes old and you already gave her a nickname?" Stiles asks, his voice thick. Lydia turns towards him, her eyes becoming soft when she sees the tears brimming in his eyes. As Scott approaches them, Lydia stands on her toes to wipe one of the tears away from Stiles' cheek with her thumb before kissing him where it had been falling. Then she steps back and walks over to Izzy's bed, sitting down in the chair next to her.

Stiles, for his part, can't stop looking at Scott McCall holding his little girl.

"Damn it," he says, rubbing furiously at his cheeks.

Scott chuckles.

"I know, right?"

He's standing right in front of Stiles, bouncing slightly as his little girl stares up at him, blinking blearily.

"Scott," says Stiles. "You made that thing."

" _Right_?"

"It didn't exist," Stiles continues. "And now it does."

"Science," Lydia says from the corner of the room, sounding very much as though she had just offered them the secret to the universe, and  _you're welcome, by the way._

"It was in Izzy," Stiles says, pointing. "And now it's out here."

"Believe me, I know," Izzy says wearily.

"You wanna hold her?" Scott asks, testing the waters by moving closer to Stiles, positioning himself for the transfer. "She is your goddaughter, after all."

Stiles stares, hard, at the baby. She stares back.

"What if she cries?"

"Drop her," Lydia advises. Scott and Izzy whirl on her. "Um, I was kidding." They relax slightly, and as they exchange glances, Lydia mouths ' _nope'_  at Stiles. He stifles a laugh.

"It's okay if you drop her. Scott and I practiced with watermelons to see if his reflexes transferred to baby catching."

"And the verdict?"

"They do, in fact," says Scott happily. "But, seriously, don't drop her. Just in case."

"I won't."

The moment Scott's daughter is placed in his arms, Stiles feels the weight of growing up pressing against him in a way that suddenly doesn't feel so strange anymore. He is holding the next generation of McCalls in his arms, the next generation of the family that raised him. He is holding the daughter of his best friend, his brother, and the granddaughter of the woman who basically had raised Stiles. And it startles him to realize that, as  _not_  ready as he is, he's also okay with this.

"Whoa," whispers Stiles. "Hi."

Nervously, he raises a finger to stroke her cheek, and Gabrielle's arms move  _fast_ , zooming up so that her hand can catch his finger. Stiles looks up to see if anybody had seen it, if anybody had seen Scott's baby grabbing his finger, and his eyes instantly lock on Lydia's. Her brow is furrowed, her lips mashing together, and she tilts her head to the side and shrugs when he shoots her a questioning glance. For a moment, Stiles is torn between comforting Lydia and not jostling Gabrielle. But then she stands up and walks up to him, leaning the side of her head against his arm as she stares down at the baby.

"That's Uncle Stiles," says Lydia, talking to the baby as if she is an adult. Gabrielle's eyes swerve from Stiles to Lydia, and she looks captivated, with an open pink mouth and eyes that don't seem to want to stop closing. "You are going to love him."

"I'm going to tickle the crap out of your feet," Stiles says, very seriously. "Watch the hell out."

"And you're also going to hate him," Lydia finishes, nuzzling into Stiles' arm. "Don't worry, though. He has a way of growing on you."

"You don't have to grow on me, though," Stiles informs her, wiggling his finger. "Cuz I already love you, kid. Forever."


	8. Night 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brie: 18  
> Shai: 16  
> Mira: 12  
> Eli: 7

"Uncle Stiles, make Eli give my doll back!"

Mira is the one who answers the door, dark hair swinging as she hauls it open and immediately moves to cross her arms indignantly over her chest. Stiles' eyes skate over her shoulder, where Eli is clutching the hand of her doll, his lips pulled into a small smirk.

"You don't play with dolls anymore," Lydia points out as she sets Chewie down. He scampers into the house, no doubt chasing after Isaac, Scott's golden retriever. The human Isaac had renamed dog Isaac when Scott's kids were  _just_ old enough to realize that annoying their dad was hilarious. Whatever name Scott had wanted hadn't mattered- the new puppy became Isaac, and the non-canine Isaac wasn't allowed back into the house for a year after that.

"Well, she was really expensive and he's  _ruining_ her hair and mom's going to get mad."

"I'm guessing it would be too much to ask that you play with the doll together," Stiles says, despite the fact that he already knows the answer. Mira nods vigorously, true to form, and Stiles heaves the long-suffering sigh of an uncle who has heard this fight too many times. "Eli, you want me to grab you a barbie from the toy chest so Mira can have her doll back?"

"Josefina," interjects Mira, casting a somewhat longing glance back at said doll. "Her name is Josefina."

"Right," Stiles agrees, nodding. "You cool with that, kid?"

"Okaaaay," he says, dragging Mira's doll a little further against the floor. Mira's face contorts into fury.

"So!" Stiles says, grabbing his niece's arm as she starts to dive. "Mira gets Josefina back, Eli gets any barbie of his choosing, and Aunt Lydia gets tickled."

He turns towards her, fingers at the ready, but Lydia knocks his hands away without looking up from her phone.

"No."

"Bleep," Stiles mutters at the floor, censoring the swear word he actually wants to say, as per Scott's request. "Why can I never get you?"

"I'm magic," says Lydia drily.

"That's actually true," Stiles tells Eli, offering him a fist to bump. "Right, kid?"

Eli nods, handing the doll off to Mira, who immediately runs up the stairs to hide Josefina in her bedroom.

"What do you wanna do?" asks Eli, turning back to Stiles expectantly.

"Getting past the front hall would be great," he says, ruffling a hand through the little boy's curly dark hair. "Plus, we gotta get Aunt Lydia into the kitchen. She's holding my Hanukkah oreos."

"Those are mommy's recipe."

Stiles looks scandalized.

"Who told you that?"

"Grandma."

"God-bleep it, Melissa."

Behind him, Lydia lets out a sound that can only be described as a giggle, and Stiles whirls on her with an expression that he hopes conveys 'fight me' in a way that is both threatening and loving. She takes off her coat with a challenge still in her eyes as she backs up to hang it in the closet, unable to break the staring contest. She probably thinks she's winning. Well, Stiles isn't going to let her-

"Um, guys? I have hot dip, here."

Shai's choppy blond hair covers parts of the amused smile on her face as she stands in the doorway to the kitchen, attempting to get through them to the living room.

"Sorry," Lydia says, breaking eye contact with Stiles. "Go ahead."

"Thanks," Shai says, padding across the hardwood floor as she passes them. "Oh!" she says, turning around and backing up slightly. "Uncle Stiles, Ellie wants you to know that Freddie is here."

"Freddie?"

"Her new boyfriend," Lydia says. "You know, the one Scott welcomed graciously into their home?" Shai's eyes swivel between the two of them. "It would be a  _shame_ if someone's protectiveness of his niece invalidated Scott's kindness."

"Scott can't beat him up because of his moral code. But I have absolutely no moral code at all."

"And also no werewolf super strength," reasons Shai. They turn to her. "Oh, sorry, yeah. This is a you guys thing."

"Behave," Lydia says to Stiles warningly. "You are not a caveman."

"How can you think that after having been married to me for this long?"

"I like to see the best in you," she replies, patting his cheek patronizingly before walking into the kitchen to find Izzy.

Shai comes back from the living room, this time sans dip, and Stiles grabs her for a hug.

"Tell me. What are my chances against Brie's boyfriend?"

She squirms out of the hug, laughing.

"He's on the soccer team."

"I used to play lacrosse!"

"Like, thirty years ago."

"How  _dare_ … yeah, actually, that's a good point."

"He's nice." Shai shrugs. "Just be nice and Ellie won't kill you."

"Pfft. Gabrielle McCall couldn't take me. Did I ever tell you about the time I punched Aunt Lydia's ex boyfriend right in the face?"

"Numerous times," Shai says. "And once you made dad act it out with you."

"Speaking of... where's my scene partner?"

"Ellie tried to make the latkes to impress Freddie."

"He's at the store?"

"Oh yeah. She burned the shit out of them."

"The first time Aunt Lydia tried to make eggs, the carton caught on fire and we almost died," recalls Stiles fondly. "So, really, I think Brie is off to a solid start."

"Any more solid and the start would have completely disintegrated," Shai jokes. "Damn, they were burnt."

"I'm hoping you're talking about s'mores and not my latkes," Brie says, tromping down the staircase with Freddie trailing behind her. With his fingers tangled in hers, Brie suddenly looks more grown up than Stiles is used to. Her long, dark hair is the exact same length as Lydia's was in high school and it hits him, quite startlingly, that Brie is an actual teenager, dating an actual teenage boy.

Stiles knows the minds of teenage boys. He does not want them near his kid.

"When would we have been making s'mores?" Shai asks rhetorically. "Couldn't you have thought of something more realistic for us to burn?"

"I hear we're making s'mores tonight," Brie replies, and Shai brightens.

"Wait, really?"

"Psych."

"Ellie!"

"What? Uncle Stiles brought mom's Hanukkah oreos-"

"Um, they're  _my_ Hanukkah oreos."

"-we definitely don't need to make s'mores. Hey, Uncle Stiles."

"Hey, Brie. You wanna introduce me to your feller?"

Shai makes a choking sound deep in her throat and ducks into the bathroom, clicking the door shut before she bursts into laughter.

"You don't have to try that hard," Brie says, wrinkling her nose. "I already warned Freddie that you were going to hate him no matter what."

"Uncle Stiles is a bit paranoid," Lydia says, emerging from the kitchen. "It's not your fault, Freddie. And nice to meet you." She extends a hand towards him, and he takes it, eyes wide.

"And that's Aunt Lydia." Brie grins.

"You're Ellie's aunt?" Freddie asks, blinking rapidly.

"By marriage," Lydia says, glancing over at Stiles. He waves at the gaping boy. "Freddie, is this your first Hanukkah?"

"Yeah!" he says brightly. "It's so cool of Ellie to invite me. I'm really excited to be here. Kinda nervous, though, cuz I don't know anyone."

"Come back to the kitchen with me," Lydia says. "Izzy and I will summarize the Torah for you."

Freddie looks mildly concerned.

"Please. She hasn't read the Torah since before her bat mitzvah," scoffs Stiles.

"However, I do have an IQ of 170, so I feel that I am fairly capable of retaining information."

Ellie groans.

"Good luck, Freddie."

"You're not coming with us?" he asks, concerned.

"I'm not sitting through that," Ellie says, throwing her hands up. "Good luck."

He follows Lydia, still a little bit terrified, as Brie shrugs and heads into the living room. Shai emerges from the bathroom and follows them, hopping onto the couch next to her sister.

"I like your skirt," she offers.

"You're just saying that because you want to borrow it."

" _Yes_ , but that means I like it extra. It's like a double compliment."

"Are we not going to talk about the fact that Brie is ruining her life?" prods Stiles.

Shai pointedly drags a pita chip through hummus and shares a knowing look with Brie as she takes a bite.

"Told you he wouldn't be able to let it go."

"Well, I don't get it. You weren't interested in dating before!"

"I've dated."

"But you've never brought someone home for Hanukkah. I mean, next thing you're letting him light the candles, and then you're in a long distance relationship, then you're living together, next you have a whole dog, and then you're  _married_ -"

"Gee, that sounds familiar," says Scott from the doorway, still carrying two paper bags full of groceries. "Anybody want to hazard a guess at who he's actually talking about?"

"I'll take that action," Shai says brightly. "What is 'Uncle Stiles' personal experience with relationships.'"

"Pretty limited, when you think about it," Brie muses. Shai sneaks a glance at Stiles before she high fives her sister.

"Solid."

"Where's Lydia?" Scott asks.

"She's in the kitchen making my boyfriend fall in love with her," says Brie, snatching a pita chip from Shai's fingertips and shoving it into her mouth at the last minute. "He's getting the goy's guide to Judaism. Unabridged."

"Where are the little kids?"

Stiles points to Shai and Brie.

"Found them."

"He means the little-littles," Shai corrects, getting up and pecking her dad on the cheek before she takes a bag from him. "And I think they're in the playroom."

Stiles is about to make a comment about the war of the doll when Poppet runs screeching up to him, wagging her tail emphatically and scraping her nails against his jeans. Stiles lifts her into his lap just as Isaac and Chewie come skidding around the corner. The look of betrayal in Chewie's eyes is almost enough to make Stiles release Poppet, but he scratches her under her collar instead and she swerves her head to the side in the way that always makes Lydia smile.

"I should go rescue Freddie," Brie sighs, pushing off of the couch.

"I'm going to pop these in the oven," Shai says, hoisting the paper bag higher on her hip.

"You're such a yenta," complains Brie. "Admit that you're trying to see how in love with Aunt Lydia my boyfriend is."

"How dare you. That's only eight-five percent true. I also  _really_ want latkes."

"Ugh. Oh my god."

Scott takes Shai and Brie's vacated places on the couch and shakes his head as they leave the room, still bickering.

"I'm glad they never had to share a room. They never would have been able to stop talking. And teenagers need sleep."

"They hated each other for a good ten years," Stiles reminds him. "Besides, not getting a lot of sleep isn't that bad. My first year of living with Lydia, I was literally always sleep deprived."

"Not for the reason I was talking about, Stiles."

"No! I mean, because we stayed up at night talking. Jesus."

"Oh, none of the other stuff ever factored in?"

"Well that's… that's not what I was talking about."

"Mhm." Scott grins as Izzy and Lydia file into the room, taking their seats next to their respective spouses. "You two left the children in the kitchen to burn the house down?"

"Better than having Lydia in there," Stiles says. "It's safer this way."

"It was  _one time_ , Stiles, let it go."

"I will never let it go. Who would have rescued Chewie if the apartment caught on fire?"

"We didn't have Chewie when that happened, dilhole. We didn't even have Luke yet."

"So, hypothetically, who would have rescued Chewie?"

"Do we have time to marathon The Lord of the Rings before they stop bickering?" Izzy asks Scott. "It's been quite a while since we watched them."

"Alright, we'll stop," Stiles says. "Let's change the subject to which of us is going to be at Shai's softball bake sale next week."

"I'm going," Scott says, blinking innocently at him. "Why? Did you want to try to convince the team to sell you pot brownies again?"

Lydia groans.

"Stiles. Let it go. They don't have different brownies for the grown ups."

"I swear to god, that one time-"

"Hey, remember how Ellie has a boyfriend?" Lydia reminds him.

"Right!" Stiles says, rounding on Scott. "I officially hate him."

"That's shocking," Izzy says drily. "I am astounded. We are all astounded."

"He hit on my  _wife_."

"Oh, that's not true," Lydia refutes, her voice sticky sweet as she rubs Stiles' thigh comfortingly. "He was too busy staring at me to hit on me, sweetheart."

"Why are you enjoying this so much?"

"Because an eighteen-year-old boy thinks I'm hot."

"Eighteen-year-old Stiles would have been so into you," Scott decides. "He might have even gotten over you to hook up with you."

"I can't decide if that's sweet or gross," Lydia admits.

"Sweet," Stiles tells her, at the same time Scott and Izzy say "gross."

"Whatever," says Stiles. "The point is, you guys are actually okay with bringing a guy home for Hanukkah?"

"When you don't live with them, it's a lot easier to not let them do stuff," points out Izzy. "Seriously, Stiles, she's eighteen. She's allowed to date. She's going to  _college_  in May."

"I can't hear you."

"You choose not to, more like," Lydia says. "Come on, Stiles. They grow up and they leave."

"Shai's not gonna leave me."

"Um, yes she is," says Izzy. "I heard her telling Scott a few days ago. Very specifically 'I am going to leave Uncle Stiles.'"

"See, now that's just  _mean_."

Izzy shrugs.

"You have a wife to coddle you."

"But she doesn't."

"This is your life, these are your choices," Lydia says, patting his knee. "Now you are going to be perfectly affable and we are going to go light the candles. The sun's setting."

"Scott, could you call for the kids?" Izzy asks, and Scott nods accommodatingly before releasing a loud werewolf growl.

"COMING!" shouts Mira from her bedroom.

Lydia frowns, tapping a finger against her lower lip.

"How exactly are you planning on explaining that to Freddie?" she asks, drawling it.

Scott's smile slides off of his face.

"Oh."

When they get to the dining room, Freddie is pale and Brie is explaining the speaker system they have in the house while Shai covers her mouth with her hand, trying to hide her amusement.

"So," says Izzy brightly, acting as though everything is normal. "Freddie! Ready to have your first Hanukkah?"

Hopefully his last, if Stiles has anything to say about it- which, yeah, he absolutely doesn't. But it's fine, because long distance almost never works.

Eli and Mira come into the room and Scott hoists his son onto a chair, letting him stand there and watch.

"You ready, buddy?" he asks, and Eli nods. "Eli knows the whole chant now," Scott tells Lydia and Stiles.

"Nice!" cheers Stiles. "You're smart."

Eli looks very pleased with himself, but Mira's the one who is wiggling closer to the menorah, elbowing past her older sisters to get right up to the dining room table.

"Mom, can I hold the shamash this time?"

"I think you're still too small, babe," says Brie, pulling Mira's hair to her back and starting to braid it. Mira crosses her arms over her chest, but doesn't stop her older sister from finishing the braid and swiftly tying it off with a hair elastic from her arm.

As Shai goes around shutting off all of the lights, Izzy hands the shamash to Scott.

"Ready to sing?" she asks the crowd.

As Scott lights all of the candles from side to side, Stiles feels Lydia locking their fingers together. He keeps his eyes on the menorah as he raises their clasped hands to his lips and kisses the top of hers, pressing it into his cheek as the McCalls begin to sing. Unlike Lydia and her mother, who chant the words of the Hanukkah blessing, Izzy had grown up singing it, and now, she and her children move easily through the slow melody that they have perfected together over the years. Shai harmonizes on instinct, and Eli tries to copy her with his small, young voice. He grows every year. It still freaks out Stiles. He still can't believe how long Scott has lived in this house, or how many things have changed since Scott and Izzy first moved in.

Stiles remembers when it was Brie standing on top of the chair, not Eli, and she hadn't known the words but had fixed her eyes on her mother's face and tried to trace the chant with her lips. He remembers when Shai had stood on top of the chair and had tripped, fallen, and scraped her knee, and how Stiles had kissed her knee and put a band aid on and drawn a silly face on it because Lydia couldn't find the funny band aids and Shai was still crying. Stiles remembers all the times that the lights had spluttered out, all the times they had watched the wax fall to the plate underneath the menorah, remembers Lydia holding three-year-old Mira out of the way of the candles because she seemed drawn to the fire. He knows all of the dips and breaks in this dining room, Scott's dining room, because it is somehow his second home. Stiles thinks that, as long as Lydia's here too, this place will always seem like it belongs to them.

They finish the chant, and the family dispurses, going to the living room for snacks or to the kitchen to help with dinner. But Stiles remains in the dining room, fixing his eyes on the menorah that glows steadily in the center of the table. Lydia stands next to him, waiting patiently for him to say what's on his mind, because that's what she does. She is always there when he needs her.

"You used to be scared of being alone," Stiles says, focusing hard on one particular candle. "Are you still?"

There's a long moment of hesitation. Lydia leans her head on his arm, almost-but-not-quite to his shoulder.

"I'm scared of not having you. Not having this."

"Me too," he says quietly.

"But I'm not scared in the same way I used to be," Lydia tells him. "I'm not scared of  _never_ having this. Of getting too far away to grab it. And we, thank god... we rescued me from it. Together. We rescued me from having nothing to be afraid of losing. I'm so glad that I am so scared of not having you. Does that make sense?"

"Not at all. But yes."

She laughs into the fabric on his sleeve, then drags her head up to look at him, her chin pressed against his arm.

"I love you."

"I know."

"No. You don't. Stiles, I  _love_ you."

"Happy Hanukkah," he murmurs before kissing her.

Lydia's face has always been illuminated for him in the dark.


End file.
